The beginning of the end for Gerard Goedhart may well have been about one year ago, when a tall, bearded CPA/county supervisor took a seat on the Orange County Vector Control District’s board of trustees.

John Moorlach marched in to the quixotic $11 million-a-year agency with a question: Why is Vector Control a separate little government unto itself? Would it make sense to merge it with, say, the county, or some other arm of government?

On Thursday, the Vector Control District’s board met in closed session to discuss Goedhart’s job performance. When the board emerged, it gave Goedhart the boot. He earned a base salary of $146,000, with a benefits package worth $52,766, bringing total compensation to $198,766. Read the full story here.

Sforza birthed the OC Watchdog column aiming to keep a critical (but good-humored) eye on governments and nonprofits, large and small. It won first place for public service reporting from the California Newspaper Publishers Association in 2010. Sforza contributed to the OCR's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of fertility fraud at UC Irvine, covered what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in America‘s history, and is the author of "The Strangest Song," the first book to tell the story of a genetic condition called Williams syndrome and the extraordinary musicality of many of the people who have it. She earned her M.F.A. from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television, and enjoys making documentaries, including the OCR's first: "The Boy Monk," a story that was also told as a series in print. Watchdogs need help: Point us to documents that can help tell stories that need to be told, and we'll do the rest.

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